Window on Chinese Poetry |
Collection Six |
Lament of the farm wife of Wu by Su Tung Po Rice this year ripens so late! We watch, but when will frost winds come? They come - with rain in bucketsful; the harrow sprouts mud, the sickle rusts. My tears are all cried out, but rain never ends; it hurts to see yellow stalks flattened in mud. We camped in a grass shelter a month by the fields; then it cleared and we reaped the grain, followed the wagon home, sweaty, shoulders sore, carting it to town - the price it fetched, you'd think we came with chaff. We sold the ox to pay taxes, broke up the roof for kindling; we'll get by for the time, but what of next year's hunger? Officials demand cash now - they won't take grain; the long northwest border tempts invaders. Wise men fill the court - why do things get worse? I'd be better off bride to the River Lord.* *this refers to the ancient custom of sacrificing a young girl each year as a "bride" to the River Lord, the god of the Yellow River. |
My Comment A serious lament, heartfelt and desperate! Farmers throughout the world would be able to identify with these words, and the bitterness expressed against the authorities who are unable or unwilling to help when it is needed. And every farmer needs help sometimes. Merv Daw |
"A TRAVELLER'S SONG" by Meng Jiao The thread in the hands of a fond-hearted mother makes clothes for the body of her wayward boy; carefully she sews and thoroughly she mends, dreading the delays that will keep him late from home. But how much love has the inch-long grass for three spring months of the light of the sun? |
My Comment Where is the boy travelling to? In what manner is he wayward? Perhaps he is a juvenile delinquent who is being taken away for imprisonment and hard labour. Despite his faults and her concerns about him, the mother devotes herself to the sewing and mending. She wonders how long it will be before he returns home. Are her labours of love appreciated by the son? Probably not. Does the grass appreciate the beneficial rays of the warm sun? Merv Daw |
"On the Yangtze" by Wang An-shih River waters shiver in the west wind; river blossoms shed their late red. Separation's sorrow is blown by a flute over the jumbled hills to the east. |
Spending the Night at a Mountain Temple by Chia Tao A host of peaks rear up into the colour of cold. At this point the road splits to the meditation hall. Shooting stars pierce through bare trees, and a rushing moon retreats from moving clouds. Visitors come but rarely to the very summit; cranes do not flock together in the tall pines. There is a monk, eighty years old, who has never heard of what happens in the world. |
My Comment The negatives in the last few lines are interesting. Life is plain and bare. The setting is dramatic and bare, too, with shooting stars, clouds and the moon clearly visible through the leafless trees of winter. Notice all of those forceful verbs. There is a cold energy in these lines that is memorable, and I like that first line: "A host of peaks rear up into the colour of cold." Merv Daw |
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